1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to printing generally and bleed-printing on paper in particular. Bleed-printing is a method of printing on and processing a paper product so as to allow the printed matter to run off one or more edges of the printed piece after trimming. This results in the printed matter extending to the very edge of the resulting printed piece. More particularly, the present invention relates to bleed-printing on social stationery. Within this application, the term "social stationery" is meant to refer to any kind of printed paper product used as part of a social event. Examples of social stationery include greeting cards, business cards, wedding invitations, napkins, place cards, etc. In another aspect, the present invention relates to decorating a napkin.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Bleed-printing and methods for bleed-printing are known in the art.
Conventionally, in order to print a piece of social stationery so that the printed matter extends to the edge of the social stationery, the printed matter is first printed on a piece of raw paper stock. Thereafter, the edge of the paper stock is trimmed using, for example, a paper cutter or die-cutter, to cut an edge on the paper stock so that the printing extends to this edge. In other words, the raw social stationery is typically larger than the finished social stationery product will be. The printed matter is printed onto the paper stock so that it is larger than the finished size of the social stationery product. Thereafter, the raw paper stock is trimmed to its finished product size so that the printed matter extends to the trimmed edge. In practice, this method of bleed-printing typically is not used in point of sale type personalization equipment (such as greeting card printers found in many retail establishments) because of the added cost of automatic paper cutting machinery or the need to have a clerk available to trim the raw social stationery (such as a personalized greeting card) using a paper cutter after the customer has personalized the social stationery.
In the same manner if printing close to the edge of a piece of social stationery is desired, this process of printing and trimming may also be required because many printers do not have the capability of placing printed matter closer than a predetermined distance from the edge of the raw paper stock. If the desired space between the printed matter and the edge of the finished product is smaller than the predetermined distance, than trimming is still required.
It is currently not possible to use an ink jet type printer of the type found in personalization equipment in retail establishments to bleed-print social stationery such as greeting cards. This is because a small margin surrounding the printed material is required when using an ink jet printer to prevent ink from being unintentionally applied to the paper handling mechanism in the ink jet printer. If ink is applied to the paper handling mechanism, then subsequent items of social stationery that are processed by the printer may end up with ink unintentionally applied to the social stationery. In addition, overspray from ink may interfere with operation of the paper handling mechanism within the printer. Furthermore, if printing is done too close to the edge of the raw paper stock where paper handling by a typical ink jet printer is less precise, the printed material may become smudged or distorted. Finally, some ink jet printers require a predetermined space between the edge of the printed matter and the raw paper stock and are therefore unable to print close to or at the edge of the finished paper product.
Decorating social stationery such as napkins is typically done using a hot stamping process that can be relatively expensive for printing anything other than straight lines of type. In addition, hot stamping cannot print multiple colors and, for anything other than text, requires that a custom die be made up.
Use of an ink jet printer to directly print on the napkin is not feasible because the ink from the ink jet printer tends to bleed into the napkin, thus obscuring the printed matter, as well as causing the colors to possibly mix in unintended ways due to this bleeding. In addition, since napkins are typically multiple plys and very flexible, they are not easily fed through a paper handling mechanism of an ink jet printer.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus that allows for bleed-printing without requiring trimming of the paper after printing.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a bleed-printed paper product, particularly a piece of social stationery.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus that allows for decorating a piece of social stationery, such as a napkin.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a decorated napkin.